Jane's Addiction: The Great Escape Artist – review

Despite the involvement of TV on the Radio's studio wiz Dave Sitek, this first album in eight years is still recognisably Jane's Addiction: a bombastic take on art-rock underpinned by Dave Navarro's virtuoso guitar work. There's nothing here to match the wildly brilliant ambition of their late-80s/early-90s peak, but "Underground" packs a hefty punch, while frenetic closer "Words Right Out of My Mouth" sounds like an ornithophobic Stooges. They come unstuck on the workmanlike "Ultimate Reason", and lyrics about " smoking till four, five or six in the morning" suggest 52-year-old frontman Perry Farrell is reluctant to grow old gracefully, but those are minor grumbles.